The present invention is related to cooling methods and apparatus to cool a portable computer system.
Computer systems continue to increase in performance and capability as ever faster processors, memory and other components are used. However, these increases in performance and capability often come with the requirements of higher power consumption and/or higher heat dissipation by components within the computer system.
At the same time, portable computer systems have increasingly supplanted more stationary computer systems, such as so-called xe2x80x98desktopxe2x80x99 or xe2x80x98mini-towerxe2x80x99 computer systems, or other forms of stationary xe2x80x98personalxe2x80x99 computer systems. However, to be portable, portable computer systems often must be of smaller size and lighter weight compared to such stationary computer systems. This need to be portable often means that there is often no room for such apparatus to cool a portable computer system as can often be found in more stationary computer systems. The need to be portable often also means that the only power source that is more consistently available is a portable power source, such as a battery, that imposes limits on the amount of power available. These limits on available power can, in turn, impose limits on the degree to which the components of a portable computer system can be cooled.
This reduced ability to cool components often requires that portable computer systems must be operated at reduced levels of performance and/or capability as compared to more stationary computer systems in order to limit the amount of heat produced by its components. Ultimately, this often prevents portable computer systems from ever fully matching the performance and/or capabilities of more stationary computer systems, and this often requires end users of such portable computer systems to accept trading away performance and/or capabilities to have the benefits of portability.